Getting a good night’s sleep is vital to your overall health and wellbeing. It is very common for people to experience occasional problems sleeping, especially if you are under a lot of stress. Try to relax before you go to bed and get into a regular sleeping routine. If you suffer from bad dreams that disrupt your sleep, try to create a calming environment and address any external factors that might be affecting your sleep.

Steps

Method1

Sleeping Peacefully

1

Relax before bed. If you have a hard time getting to sleep, you should take some steps to help you relax and prepare for bed before you want to go to sleep. Spending some time relaxing and clearing your mind can help you to fall asleep more quickly and sleep peacefully through the night. There are lots of different techniques you can try to help you relax before bed, such as:

Don’t eat a meal just before bed. You should try to avoid things that might make it harder for you to fall asleep and stay asleep. If you eat a big meal before going to bed, your overfull stomach may make it more difficult to fall asleep. You should try to eat your evening meal at least three hours before you intend to go to bed.

A carbohydrate-rich snack, such as oatcakes or a bowl of cereal an hour before bed, might help you sleep.[4]

Going to bed when you are hungry or have an empty stomach will also make it harder to fall asleep.

Eating too much or too little before can cause you discomfort throughout the night, preventing the peaceful sleep you need.[5]

3

Drink something soothing, not stimulating. Avoid drinking stimulants such as alcohol and caffeine before going to bed. Alcohol might seem like something that can help you sleep, but you are more likely to experience poor quality sleep if you have been drinking. You may be dehydrated, and you may have to get to use the toilet in the night.[6]

Having a warm milky drink, or a herbal tea, can help you to prepare for sleep.[7]

A glass of warm milk will help produce more of the chemicals in your brain that induce sleep.[8]

4

Avoid late night TV and video games. You may find it harder to get to sleep and sleep peacefully if you have been watching TV, playing video games, or using your computer or phone soon before bed. Looking at a bright screen can make it harder for you to relax, and can disrupt the secretion of melatonin.[9] It’s best to make sure that you have a break between looking at screens and getting into bed. [10]

Research has suggested that playing video games in the early evening has a connection to sleeping difficulties.

Similarly, those who use their phones in bed are often drowsier and less alert during the day.[11]

5

Create the right environment. If you want to enjoy a peaceful sleep, making your bedroom into the perfect sleeping area can really help. Generally, you should try to keep your room dark, reasonably warm, and free of clutter and electronic devices which could irritate or distract you. You want to create a relaxing and comfortable place that you associate with sleeping more than anything else.

Keep your room dark. Consider using blackout curtains or an eye mask.

Try to keep the temperature between 60-65°F (16-18°C).

Avoid bright colours which can be overly stimulating when you want to relax.

Method2

Having Good Dreams

1

Play soothing sounds in the background. There is some evidence that soft and soothing sounds or music played quietly in the background can help you to get to sleep and ease you towards more peaceful dreams. Be sure that anything you play is quiet and calming, such as the sound of gentle ocean waves.[13]

If you find soft music helps you get to sleep more peacefully, you can set your music player to go off after around half an hour.[14]

Noises and sounds can disrupt your sleep too. Wear ear plugs if you are disturbed at night by sound.[15]

2

Alter your sleeping position. There is some evidence to suggest that the position you sleep in can have an impact on how you sleep and the kind of dreams you have. The most important thing is to be relaxed and comfortable, but try to be aware of the position you fall asleep and wake up in. You can try to alter this and see if it helps you have nice dreams and avoid nightmares.

Sleeping on your right side is associated with more pleasant and relaxing dreams.

Sleeping on your left side is thought to be connected with strange dreams and nightmares.

Address other causative issues. Research has shown that there is a link between depression and frequently disturbed sleep and nightmares. Nightmares may be closely connected to how we feel about ourselves and our lives. One way to try to address them is to think more about your life and try to improve your mental and physical health.

Try to think more positively about yourself, especially just before you go to bed.[18]

Relaxation techniques, such as meditation and deep breathing may help.

4

Deal with traumatic experiences. Nightmares are often thought to reflect stressful and fearful experiences in life. An emotionally difficult event, or a trauma of any kind, may return in a dream. If you have a recurring nightmare that you think is related to something you have experienced, you need to take steps to address the traumatic event in order to work through it.

You can talk to a therapist about the event to try and understand it more clearly.

If you have a recurring nightmare, spend some time trying to write a new and positive or neutral ending for the dream.

Each night before you go to bed try to re-imagine and visualise the dream in your head with this new positive ending.[19]

5

Know when to talk to a doctor. Occasionally everybody has difficulty sleeping and experiences nightmares that disrupt their sleep. If you often have difficulty sleeping, and it is having an impact on your life and what you can do during the day, you should make an appointment to talk to your doctor.[20] The same applies for frequent disturbing nightmares. Talk to your doctor if:

You or your child have nightmares that recur often and persist over time.

The nightmares regularly disrupt sleep or cause a fear of going to sleep.

I always have dreams about terrible things happening to my mom, what can I do to help that?

wikiHow Contributor

Your dreams may be about worrying about many things but they are manifested in the person you dearly care about, your mother. Try to improve your general health and sleeping habits. For example, wake up early in the morning, go for a walk and try some meditation. Eat healthy food and keep fit. These healthful approaches to life may help you to have better sleep with fewer worries.

Would the sound of my fan help me go to sleep, or would it keep me awake?

wikiHow Contributor

It depends, as everyone is different. Some people need absolute quiet in order to fall asleep, while some people need background noise in order to sleep. If you need the fan on because it is hot and stuffy in your room, but can't fall asleep due to the noise, try moving it further from your bed or wearing a pair of ear plugs.

Try thinking of the things you want to dream about during the day and before you go to bed. If you think about it a lot during the day and before bed, you should be able to dream about what you want. It worked for me a little, although my dreams sometimes get weird and don't make any sense, but I wouldn't worry about that.

How do I distract myself from scary thoughts after seeing a horror movie?

Potato Land

Well first off, don't watch a scary movie before you go to bed. If you're scared, you could hug a stuffed animal (or real animal) or get up and talk to someone about your fears. You could also try to relax and imagine your dream world where you can have ANYTHING you want, like mansions, meetings with your favorite celebrities, etc. Don't even think about the real world.

Try to sleep somewhere the light comes, like near a window, so that the street light would come to your room the whole night, and sunlight would come in the morning. If not, tell yourself that there's nothing in the dark. Don't think of the dark. Think something good or pleasing before sleeping and don't worry that there's dark in your room.

What should I do if I keep thinking about school exams before I sleep?

wikiHow Contributor

You know, psychology says, you cannot STOP thinking about something, but you can always DELAY thinking about it. Suppose you have to sleep at 10.30 PM and you're worried about your exams, tell yourself that you will wake up and give yourself 15-20 mins in the morning to worry/think/cry/fret about it. Make sure you give yourself some time in the morning, but you probably won't even need it, things usually look better in the morning.